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Box office time machine: No. 1 films from 10, 20 and 30 years ago

Morgan Freeman, left, and Brad Pitt star in David Fincher's "Seven."

Morgan Freeman, left, and Brad Pitt star in David Fincher’s “Seven.”

(Robert Isenberg / Handout)
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Welcome to the Movies Now box office time machine. With “Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials” overtaking “Black Mass” and Johnny Depp’s Whitey Bulger-turn for control of the weekend’s box office, we look at the No. 1 films from 10, 20 and 30 years ago. Click a film’s title to read The Times’ review:

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2005 — The Jodie Foster vehicle “Flightplan,” with $24.6 million ($32.2 million in 2015 dollars), topped the second-week expansion of “Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride.” Despite the presence of Foster, the Robert Schwentke-directed “Flightplan” hit the skids with critics (38% at Rotten Tomatoes). Hot off screenings in the director’s hometown at the Toronto Film Festival, David Cronenberg’s “A History of Violence,” starring Viggo Mortensen, registered the weekend’s highest per-screen average. “Violence” rode rave reviews (87% at RT) to Academy Award nominations for Josh Olson’s adaptation of the graphic novel by John Wagner and Vince Locke, and supporting actor William Hurt.

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1995 — David Fincher’s serial-killer thriller, “Seven,” scored $13.9 million ($26.9 million in 2015 dollars) to outleg the soon-to-be-a-cult-classic “Showgirls,” directed by Paul Verhoeven. Critics’ perceptions of the two films differed greatly, with “Seven” scoring 80% and “Showgirls” shaking it to a well-deserved 19% at Rotten Tomatoes. The long-forgotten “A Month by the Lake,” with Vanessa Redgrave, Edward Fox and Uma Thurman, notched the highest per-screen average. It sank quickly thereafter despite a 71% RT score.

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1985 — “Back to the Future” topped the charts for the 11th time in 12 weeks with $3.9 million ($9.3 million in 2015 dollars), fending off the top debut, “Creator,” starring Peter O’Toole and Mariel Hemingway. Directed by Ivan Passer, the sci-fi comedy was not one of O’Toole’s better-reviewed efforts (36% at RT). “BTTF” star Michael J. Fox’s other hit, “Teen Wolf,” slipped to third in its fifth week of release. “Plenty,” starring Meryl Streep and an eclectic band of Brits — John Gielgud, Ian McKellen, Tracey Ullman and Sting — topped the per-screen average. Directed by Fred Schepisi from David Hare’s stage adaptation, the film had an awards pedigree upon release, but mediocre reviews (57% at RT) left it empy-handed at Oscar time.

All figures are from boxofficemojo.com.

Twitter: @storyspheare

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